The present invention relates to a device for making a dental model.
One of conventional methods of manufacturing dental models is described in German patent P No. 2949697. In this method a positive impression of the teeth made out of model material and having tooth stumps is releasably fastened to a prefabricated solid base plate formed of formstable plastics. Individual openings are made in the base plate which operate as guide elements for pins which are inserted into hardenable model material and rigidly and unreleasably anchored in the tooth stump. This method has been widely utilized in practice at the present time to produce dental models with precision which has not been obtained earlier. However, manufacturing of these guide elements, namely bores and dowel pins has been time-consuming. Furthermore, individual fixation of positions of the pins has been also time-consuming.
A dental keying device for a dental model is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,581,398. In this device a guiding ridge for guiding the dental model is utilized in place of individual pins. This ridge is however unreleasably anchored in the model and detachably made on the base plate, which model is only partially formed of hardenable material and is composed not only of the prefabricated base plate. Thereby no guiding surfaces are produced on the tooth stumps during the hardening of the model material. Furthermore, the known dental keying device has no perforations which would provide a simple and reliable orientation of the base plate relative to the dental cast.